TG24: Aston DBS Superleggera Volante vs McLaren 720S Spider

Aston: £247,500
McLaren: £237,000

Okay, £10,500 might sound like a lot of money – after all, a whole Dacia Duster costs £10,995 – but don’t be fooled. To all intents and purposes, these two cars cost basically the same. A quarter of a million quid, give or take, before you’ve even considered the options lists.

See that McLaren? It has an extra £25,090 worth of carbonfibre attached to it. What isn’t bare carbon is covered in almost £8k worth of ‘Baleric Blue’ paint, while the fancy seats, ten-spoke lightweight alloys and sport exhaust add £5,270, £4,520 and £4,900 respectively. All in, that’s a £291,610 car right there.

The Aston? Much the same story. Aston hasn’t revealed the individual cost of each option fitted to our DBS, but all in it amounts to £282,195. A Mercedes-AMG A35's worth of optional extras. These two are by far the most expensive road cars at TG24.

Aston: 5.2-litre twin-turbo V12
McLaren: 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8

Both of these cars employ turbochargers – a necessity to get through today’s emissions tests. The McLaren’s two are strapped to a 4.0-litre V8 codenamed M840T, which is effectively a development of the 3.8-litre M838T V8 that’s appeared in every ‘new’ McLaren beginning with the MP4-12C. Yep, including the P1.  

The DBS, meanwhile, has a V12. Because surely that’s the engine a big, brutish grand tourer like the Superleggera deserves. The 5.2-litre replaces the old 6.0-litre N/A motor that was fitted to the DB9 and so on, and naturally is much kinder to the environment (it’s all relative) while capable of delivering more power.

Aston: 715bhp, 664lb ft
McLaren: 710bhp, 568lb ft

Speaking of power, both the McLaren and Aston have a significant amount of it. Both send said power to their rear axles only, the Aston through a conventional eight-speed automatic and the McLaren via a seven-speed DCT. 

Aston: 0-62mph in 3.6 seconds
McLaren: 0-62mph in 2.9 seconds

Predictably, these are two exceptionally fast cars. The McLaren’s launch control and more sophisticated traction and stability systems means that ultimately, it’s the easier car from which to extract much speed. Getting the Aston off the line is a challenge, as it has no launch mode whatsoever, but on the move the way it deploys its 664lb ft of torque is extraordinary. 

Aston: 211mph roof up or down
McLaren: 212mph roof up, 202mph roof down

Aston Martin wins this round (though the McLaren is ultimately quicker), because it can do 211mph regardless of whether its roof is up or down. We suspect the flimsy windbreak, which manually clicks into place behind the two front seats (yes, the Aston has rear seats), wouldn’t be much use at such speeds.

Aston: 1,945kg
McLaren: 1,468kg

We’ve not got those figures wrong. The Aston really is almost half a tonne heavier than the McLaren. But given these are two such different cars, that’s not really surprising. Of course the McLaren – the precision-engineered supercar – is lighter than the raffish grand tourer. 

Which one do we like the most? Stay tuned for the full twin-test...